The highlight of this episode was Lurene Tuttle, who became the mother-in-law of composer John Williams (Star Wars, etc.). She also had her one movie-star role in Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960), which was banned in the United Kingdom.
Lurene Tuttle was mostly a radio voice personality, and she also did supporting roles in a lot of comedies. However, in this one, she does a great job as the tough Mom of her bookworm son turned Sheriff, played by James Olsen.
I always found Olsen to be a boring actor who often played boring characters, and this was no exception. His Father was the previous Sheriff, and when Olsen went to college for a year, he discovered law books. After reading on the law, Olsen decided his old Dad was too backwards. So when his Dad passed, Olsen takes over as Sheriff. Olsen implements his modern Philadelphia legal ideas, and becomes the tyrant of the town. Everyone is going out of business because of Olsen's town laws.
When Olsen jails a visiting outlaw carrying a gun, all the outlaw gang is coming to town to get even with Olsen, and to take over the town. Palladin happens to be in town because he read about Olsen in the newspaper back in his hotel in San Francisco. Palladin put his business card on the newspaper story, and the theme music plays. A day later Palladin and his horse had traveled a thousand miles. I have always wanted to get a set of those magic business cards.
As often happens in HGWT, Palladin is having a philosophical discussion with Olsen. In this episode it is about gun rights. Palladin predicts that because of gun control, only the villains will have guns. Palladin is proven to be right when the villains arrive to kill Olsen. I like the gunfight, I thought it was creative compared to other gun-fights on HGWT.
Lurene Tuttle has all the best lines, and you have to wonder how Opie would have turned out if she had played Aunt Bee on the Andy Griffith Show which started a couple of years after this episode.